The teacher of Cheops
SynopsisPlot
This is the history of the time of Pharaoh Snefru and Queen Hetepheres, the parents of Cheops, who built the largest and most impressive pyramid of all. It is also the story of Sedum, a slave who became Cheops' teacher, the high priest Ramosi, and how the first pyramid came to be built. Sebekhotep, the great wise man of that time, said, "Everything is written in the stars. Most of us live our lives unaware of it. Some can read the stars and see their destiny. But very few people learn to write in the stars and change their destiny."
Story
About this book
The Teacher of Cheops is set in ancient Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Snefru and his queen Hetepheres, the parents of Khufu, known in Greek as Cheops. Snefru's reign saw the construction of the first true pyramids, and the novel follows the events and rivalries surrounding these early building projects. At the center of the story is Sedum, a slave who rises to become the personal teacher of the young Cheops, and the high priest Ramosi, whose ambitions pull the plot through layers of court intrigue and danger.
Albert Salvadó, the author, was from Andorra, a small country in the Pyrenees between France and Spain. He wrote several historical novels set in periods and places far from his home territory. In this book, the distance between a slave's origins and a pharaoh's education forms a central tension, set against questions of knowledge, power, and who controls access to both. The narrative moves quickly through episodes of mystery, murder, and political maneuvering, grounding its large-scale historical setting in the fates of individual characters caught between obedience and ambition.
